Just ask Shakespeare - the warrior king makes a great topic for a
play. Two hundred years ago, history gave us Jean Jacques Dessalines, who
lead the Haitian people to freedom from France and ultimately crowned
himself emperor of the newly formed nation. Playwright Levy Lee Simon
tells this story in Dessalines (The Heart) Blood and Liberation, the
second play in his Haitian independence trilogy, For the Love of
Freedom.

The story of Dessalines, "The Tiger," is at once unique and terribly
familiar. Dessalines led an army of uneducated former slaves to
independence for the only time in recorded history. But Dessalines was
unable to lead his people in peace. Drunk with power, unskilled at
political compromise, and so terrified of again losing his people to
slavery, he would slaughter whites who presented no threat to him,
Dessalines nearly destroyed the fragile country he had successfully
brought into being against incredible odds.

If his story sounds like a massive undertaking for a small theatre, it
is. Dessalines is performed by an ensemble cast of nearly forty,
and plays approximately three hours. It mixes traditional drama with
other storytelling forms, making brief forays into dance and song.
Additionally, the production is accompanied by live percussionists who
lay down rhythms not only for the more dance-related sequences, but some
of the dramatic scenes as well. Dessalines is an ambitious
production, and it is at its most successful when it is transcending the
bounds of traditional stagecraft. The actual revolution scene, in which an
army of 20,000 is represented by less than twenty men, precisely
choreographed with narration provided by the increasingly-excited voices
of four female "praise singers," is exceptional.

In other places, however, the scope of the production defeats its
effectiveness. The show opens with the praise singers summarizing the
first play of the trilogy. For those who did not actually see the first
play and do not otherwise have a good working knowledge of Haitian
history, it is so fact-heavy it is nearly impossible to follow. Its
comprehensibility is not aided by the fact that the audience is on both sides
of the stage, so at any given time, the praise singer providing narration
will have her back toward half the audience. Add in the loud drumbeats,
and this is a history lesson that does not fully reach its students. A
synopsis of the first play would be truly welcome in the program. In its
absence, the audience spends a good part of the first act trying to figure
out who is who and with whom he happens to be allied.

The pacing of the show also needs to be quickened. There's a moment in
which a French leader commits a horrible act of brutality against a black
prisoner. It is disgusting, both for the act itself and for the reaction of
the other characters onstage, who all approve. Thereafter, the lights
drop while the company rearranges itself for a short epilogue to the
scene. While the initial scene packed a powerful emotional wallop, the
follow-up scene does not. During the lengthy set change, the audience
revulsion has dissipated. Either the first scene must flow unimpeded into
the second, or the second should be cut altogether.

The large cast puts in some solid work. At its center is Abner Genece
as Dessalines. Genece is a big man, and he stands with the posture of
someone who dares anyone to ask him to bend. As the wartime General,
Genece paints a picture of barely - and rarely - controlled rage. As
the King, Genece lets loose a charismatic smile and joy at life that
almost, but not quite, enables you to forget the acts of cruelty he is
committing. Standouts in the ensemble include Rico E. Anderson as
Alexander Petion, a general who is more of a thinking man than Dessalines.
Anderson is best with his facial expressions, which frequently tell the
audience that Petion thinks something very different from what he is
saying. Also noteworthy is Ayana Cahrr as Defilee, a woman who expresses
both physical love for and spiritual protectiveness over Dessalines.
Cahrr is extremely energetic, and when she bounds onstage and jumps into
Dessalines' arms, she brings a vitality to an otherwise slow moving
portion of the play.

No doubt, Dessalines is a play that needs some work. But it has
great potential as an exciting evening that gives us some insight into the
mindset of a man who nearly destroyed his people in an effort to preserve
their hard-won freedom.
Dessalines runs at the Greenway Court Theatre, Fridays and
Saturdays at 8:00, Sundays at 7:00, through October 20. For tickets and
information, call (323) 655-4402. www.robeytheatrecompany.com.